The Top Invoicing Softwares For Your Startup

The Top Invoicing Softwares For Your Startup

Everybody likes getting paid, but getting paid could be just as much of a hassle as closing the deal. Some invoicing softwares are so complicated and confusing that it is better to avoid them. Some others will limit you and only allow you to use certain features after you pay a subscription for the software. I’ve personally used many invoicing softwares for my ventures, but I’ve never found a perfect one. Below I will go over a few invoicing softwares and tell you the pros and cons of each one by my experience.

1. Freshbooks

Freshbooks is one of the invoicing softwares that I use the most. Not because it is the best or better than the rest, but because I started off with freshbooks. If you’re familiar with the emailing subscription plugin, Mailchimp, then you probably already know how the “free” thing works. Basically Freshbook has a similar business model to that. They offer you the features for free until you reach a certain limit, then you have to pay a larger fee.

One of the things that I love about FreshBooks is how it supports over 10 payment solutions. This include all the big ones like Paypal. You can easily create custom invoice with your company’s logo on it. You could also choose to bill your clients on a schedule. Client information is easy to set up as well.

The cons about Freshbooks is how it tricks you into using the program with free clients, then end up making you pay a bigger price after you start to register more clients information into the program. Another bad thing that I did not like was how the manual credit card system worked. It’s extremely confusing and the invoice comes out all weird and unorganize. I had to do a lot of research on how to set up the manual card payments.

2. Wave

Next up on our invoicing softwares list is Wave. This one attracted me right away because it was free. I was a little hesitant about it at first because I don’t believe in free lunches, but it’s real and completely free. Wave makes it’s money through it’s other services such as a cheap and affordable payroll service.

Wave’s invoicing tools make it easy to bill your clients and get paid. With so many intuitive features, there are no limits on how many customers or invoices you send. And it’s all 100% free. The best thing about wave other than the fact that it is free is how simple and straight forward it is. The layout is amazing and easy to use. You can easily figure out where to add new invoices etc. You could also easily access the mobile version.

The cons of using Wave is that it only accept Stripe as a payment method which kind of slaps all my loyal paypal clients in the face. Wave also does not include time tracking. Nevertheless this is one of my favorite invoicing softwares. What else more can you ask for from something that ‘s free.

3. Harvest

Harvest is one of invoicing softwares that have been around for a while. Most of my close friends who run consulting agencies use Harvest and have been using it for years. Harvest makes invoicing easy. Create invoices in under a minute, customize logos and translations, and invoice in different currencies. Everything about Harvest invoicing is automatic, fast and accurate.

The pros of Harvest is that it’s an all in one system. It’s been tested many times and updated frequently throughout the years. One thing I really liked about Harvest is the customer management system that allows your clients to log in and make payments. When I was using Freshbook, I had the hardest time getting something similar to that set up. Extremely top notch support from Harvest’s support team when I ran into problems. Pricing for solo freelancers start at 12$/month

When I was using Harvest, they only accepted Paypal and authorize.net. At the time they did not accept any of the new type of payment methods such as stripe. I’m not sure if they accept it now. The other thing I didn’t like about Harvest as an invoicing software was that it felt really chunky. The timestamp features that they added were kind of confusing to me.

4. BallPark

A lot of startups have been using Ballpark lately. Ballpark is an invoicing software that has an extremely sleek and modern feel to it. In addition to the excellent user interface, it also accepts both paypal and stripe, no wonder so many startups are currently using it. You could also do easy transfers between freshbook to ballpark.

One thing I really loved when trying out Ballpark was how the invoices look. You could make it look like postcards. The reason why this is useful is because it makes me feel more connected to my client. Another thing I loved is how you can get 6 months free if you transfer your data over from Freshbooks. Built for teams from 1 to 100, Ballpark makes it easy to stay on time and on budget. Log time from your browser, or on the go with their iPhone app.

There really isn’t anything that I dislike about Ballpark. The pricing is excellent as well, starting at 12.99$ per month after your free 6 months. I’ve asked a lot of friends who use it and all of them recommend this to be the ultimate invoicing software.

Use of online invoicing tools/software is giving life to many businesses. These tools help in getting paid faster. More they save a lot of time and efforts. These tools not only help in invoicing, but can also be used for project & client management, staff management with time tracking features.

Invoicera is one of the online invoicing software which provides all these features. Try Invoicera.com Free plan also available.